<translation>Unopened Bauhaus in Brno-Ivanovice will lay off 77 employees</translation>

Brno - The Bauhaus company will lay off employees that were hired last year for the newly built, but still unopened store in Brno Ivanovice. The construction of the hobby market was made possible by a certificate issued by authorized inspector Milan Teigiser. However, opponents of the construction have filed a lawsuit against him, and until the Prague City Court rules on it, Bauhaus will remain closed due to the granted suspensive effect. The company’s costs are thus increasing; in the first phase, 77 people will lose their jobs, Tomáš Hanzlík from the Bauhaus media department informed ČTK today.
    "The decision to make mass layoffs had to be made by Bauhaus to prevent further increase in damages, including wasted costs on employees," said Hanzlík. According to him, a paradoxical situation is being created, as some of the employees are from Ivanovice and the surrounding area.
    "We were forced to do this by the incomprehensible decision of the judge. He essentially said that it is necessary to prevent the construction of a building that has already been fully completed since last September and has also obtained eight building approvals out of a total of 11," added Hanzlík. The company will seek damage compensation from all parties involved who, according to them, harmed it with their actions.
    A total of 150 employees were hired for the Bauhaus Ivanovice shopping center. After the first wave of layoffs, about half of them will remain employed. Bauhaus has provided them work in other stores.
    Jiří Koželouh from the civic association Nesehnutí, which, together with the Klidné Ivanovice association, fights against Bauhaus's actions, said that Bauhaus bears the main responsibility for the created situation. According to Koželouh, the company did not apply for building approval with the building authority and approached the authorized inspector to issue a certificate. This option, however, imposes an obligation to approach the affected neighbors, which allegedly did not happen, and thus he acted unlawfully. Therefore, the Prague City Court ruled on the suspensive effect, which prevents Bauhaus from opening the new hobby market.
    According to Koželouh, the fault lies in the construction law. "Certificates were introduced for completely different cases. They were supposed to address cases where someone wanted to build, for example, a garage, and only needed a neighbor's approval for that," said Koželouh.
    Last year, Bauhaus already announced that due to the halted project in Ivanovice, it was considering arbitration against the Czech Republic. Bauhaus calculated the damage associated with a potential complete thwarting of the investment at 2.24 billion crowns.